RTT

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Revision as of 14:40, 26 January 2018 by Alex (talk | contribs) (Stop mode)
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Modes

SEGGER RTT (SEGGER Real Time Transfer) can run in different modes where some modes are not available on all devices but other modes are which then have an impact on the real time behavior of the device.

Background mode

This is the mode which RTT was initially introduced with. In this mode, J-Link can access the memory of the target system while the MCU + application keeps running (background memory access), effectively not impacting the real time behavior of the application. In order to use this mode, the target MCU needs to support background memory accesses.

Cores with background mode support

  • Cortex-M based devices (all cores from the series)
  • Renesas RX based devices (all cores from the series)

Cores with optional background mode support

  • Cortex-A based devices (all cores from the series)
  • Cortex-R based devices (all cores from the series)
  • RISC-V based devices (no core available so far that implements this feature)

Cortex-A/R specific: It depends on the actual device if it supports background memory accesses because it is up to the device vendor if the necessary hardware unit is implemented or not. In addition to that, when using the background mode on Cortex-A/R based devices, some considerations need to be taken into account when it comes to caches etc. These are explained in AN08005

Stop mode

This mode has been introduced in J-Link software V6.30 in order to also allow using RTT on devices / CPU architectures that do not support background memory accesses. This mode affects the real time behavior of the application but can still be used for most target applications.

In this mode, J-Link temporarily halts the CPU (interrupts the execution of the target application) to access the memory and continues operation automatically after the memory access is done. The actual impact (halted time) on the real time behavior depends on the setup (target interface speed used, target interface used, length of JTAG chain, actual core that is used, ...).

Cores with stop mode support

  • Cortex-A based devices
  • Cortex-R based devices
  • RISC-V based devices

Note: It is recommended to only use this mode with target interface speeds of 25 MHz or higher (J-Link ULTRA+, J-Link PRO) to keep the effect on the real time behavior as small as possible. J-Link model overview

Effect on real time behavior

Typical halted times for memory read accesses in stop mode with J-Link ULTRA+ @ 50 MHz:

Typical halted times for memory read accesses in stop mode with J-Link PLUS @ 15 MHz: